I am forwarding this report to you verbatim which Mark Bohde sent out, that you can begin this year with Good News. Let us thank and praise God that this work is going forward. The story told by a local pastor at the end of this report about demon possession and superstition shows the great need of our Lord in this stronghold of the devil. We are assured by our Lord that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the advance of the Gospel.

After our conference and instruction in Nan Province in Thailand, we went to Hanoi, Vietnam. It is essential that you do not post this information for public distribution. Since Vietnam is still a communist nation, the students involved might have trouble with the government.

In all of our meetings I try to limit the student group to 15. It is difficult to teach a large group effectively. With a small group we can have interaction, questions, and I can observe facial expressions. In each session I teach, all the students must agree to teach others the material they have learned. Since almost everyone is a pastor or leader this is easy for them to accomplish. In this way, God’s Word can spread to many more people.

I have compiled the books entirely from Scripture so they can function as reference books for those who teach. While we discuss the passages, I urge the students to keep notes in their books. In addition, I am trying to help them build libraries that can be reviewed, taught, duplicated and passed on. My end goal is that what they believe and teach will be based entirely on God’s clear Word.

The response was strong. They asked if we could come back at least 4 times every year. I told them that if God was willing we would come. After the first day of instruction, one of the pastors organized a conference (to begin the day after we concluded) to teach a new group what he had learned.

The Lord blessed the work in Hanoi tremendously. Please pray for us and the spread of God’s Word in Asia.

I have attached photos of our group in Hanoi and the book we taught. I also included more information concerning the spiritual battle they face at the end of this email. Pastor (name deleted) translated the information into English.

Blessings, Mark

( A list of names was included which I deleted.)

Dagon Devil in the Hmong context

“The Hmong usually attacks by devil in the shape of dragon. Nobody knows about the certain shape of the dragon devil, but usually the Hmong knows dragon as a big serpent. The dragon has been understood as the gods of rivers and water pools, he has authority to rules over rivers and pools he causes to rain and makes water flood. If anyone drown into the water or river and died the Hmong normally understood that, he or she was caught or trapped by dragon devil. Dragon also has authority causes people fall in serious sick, if anyone got sick and could not heal by any of medical ways, the Hmong believed that those person’s spirit or soul has been caught by dragon devil and need to pay sacrifice to the dragon, they may offer pig, chicken or even cow to redeem the sick person’s soul or spirit back. (pay animal to the dragon devil and he will free the sick’s spirit or soul.)

The woman in Nan Province who was attacked by dragon almost die, dragon wanted to take her as dragon’s mate (wife), she could not escape from dragon even paid sacrifice a lot. The people even do not want to be Christian but they naturally knew and accepted God’s power, they assured that every kind of devils fear God the Creator, being Christian is only one way that can be safe from every kind of devils. Then that woman’s relatives allowed the woman to be Christian but all of her family and relatives still worshiping animist. Thank you God, not so long after she became Christian and accepted Jesus Christ as her savior she has been healed and the people in the village realized that God has power and rules over animists and devils.”

There are several kinds of devil (many types of devil) in the contexts of the Hmong but in this case I only wrote specific about the woman in Nan which we heard from one pastor who shared the story for us while we were there.